https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog Notes on maps, the web, and whatever I have been taking apart lately. en Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/building-parchment-on-open-data https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/building-parchment-on-open-data Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT What Parchment is, who it is for, and the four commitments it runs on. The rest of the series is how far that has actually got. https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/parchment-barrelman-split https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/parchment-barrelman-split Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT The free APIs were not too expensive. They were unchangeable. Building my own geospatial engine split the architecture in two, and the half that holds no personal data turned out to be a business. https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/parchment-provider-capabilities https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/parchment-provider-capabilities Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Parchment stopped asking which service to call and started asking which job needs doing. The idea came from Home Assistant, and it changed how every feature after it got designed. https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/parchment-where-it-stands https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/parchment-where-it-stands Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Parchment is in closed alpha behind a waitlist. Here is what works, what is still being built, and what has to be true before I let more people in. https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/where-parchment-started https://alex.wohlbruck.com/blog/where-parchment-started Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT The goal was a maps app that is private, self-hostable and free, built on open data. The free public endpoints were not a shortcut around that goal. They were the goal.